Response regarding about shutting down Coed Schools for Jews because of Sex Ed

Recently, a gentleman with a well known Jewish blog was writing about sex education in religious schools and how one Open Orthodox Rabbi wants sex education in modern orthodox schools the way that it is done in public schools. During the course of his post, he said that he is opposed to coed schools beyond 6th grade and especially high school. The reason is that once a child reaches puberty the sex drive kicks into high gear. Teenage boys think of little else when their minds are not being distracted by their studies.

I will grant that boys do think about girls a good deal. However, a number of students at coed high schools somehow during puberty managed to do exceptionally well in high school that they were admitted to Ivy League schools such as Columbia, Yale, Penn and Harvard. Additionally, what are the number of students from single gender high schools that are accepted to elite schools? They're probably single gender but modern such as MTA and Central High School for Girls, not the "Bais Yaakov" type schools.

My biggest problem is that he wants to shut down a whole section of schools because of a few incidents of premarital sex in high school. A number of these coed schools have been around for many years. They aren't going to just close shop or totally remake themselves into separate gender schools because of a few individuals succumbing to temptation.

Then this gentleman goes to to delineate appropriate interaction between the sexes such as Shabbat meals with teens of opposite gender, Kiddushim at synagogue and chaperoned activities such as Bnei Akiva and NCSY.

In case this gentleman is not aware, at a lot of these single gender high schools, the student and parents sign a contract with the school saying that they will not participate in mixed activity while they are enrolled in the school. How can one expect teachers at a Bet Yaakov or Yeshiva High School who enforce rules about boys not talking to girls magically chaperone the same group of teens on a joint out of school activity during vacation or Yom HaAtzmaut, etc.?

This type of condescension towards the Modern Orthodox is the kind of thing that hardens our hearts and makes us not want to cooperate with the Yeshiva world on other important issues such as rising tuition costs.